Friday's have become a busy day for Zika news and research paper releases, and yesterday was no certainly no exception. At the top of the list was a study from researchers at UCLA & Fiocruz which looked at a small group of pregnant women from Rio de Janeiro who were infected with the Zika virus during their pregnancy.

While the number of pregnancies studied was small, the percentage of fetal abnormalities was much higher than expected, and the effects appear to have occurred across all three trimesters of pregnancy.

The new study by researchers at UCLA and in Brazil could help dispel the idea that pesticides cause the disease

Enrique Rivero |
March 04, 2016

New
research presents strong evidence that the Zika virus can indeed cause a
range of abnormalities in pregnant women infected with the virus — with
the effects manifesting any time during pregnancy. Some of the
abnormalities noted have not been reported in connection with the virus.

In a study published online March 4 in the New England Journal of
Medicine, researchers at UCLA and at the Fiocruz Institute in Brazil
found that clinical and ultrasound data in 29 percent of women who
tested positive for the Zika virus revealed associations between
infection and “grave outcomes” that included fetal death, placental
insufficiency with low to no amniotic fluid, fetal growth restriction
and central nervous system damage in the fetus, including potential
blindness.

“We have found a strong link between Zika and adverse pregnancy
outcomes, which haven’t been documented before,” said study senior
author Dr. Karin Nielsen, professor of clinical pediatrics in the
division of pediatric infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of
Medicine at UCLA. “We saw problems with the fetus or the pregnancy at
eight weeks, 22 weeks, 25 weeks, and we saw problems at 35 weeks. Even
if the fetus isn’t affected the virus appears to damage the placenta,
which can lead to fetal death.”

Background

Zika
virus (ZIKV) has been linked to neonatal microcephaly. To characterize
the spectrum of ZIKV disease in pregnancy, we followed patients in Rio
de Janeiro to describe clinical manifestations in mothers and
repercussions of acute ZIKV infection in fetuses.

Methods

We
enrolled pregnant women in whom a rash had developed within the
previous 5 days and tested blood and urine specimens for ZIKV by
reverse-transcriptase–polymerase-chain-reaction assays. We followed the
women prospectively and collected clinical and ultrasonographic data.

Results

A total of
88 women were enrolled from September 2015 through February 2016; of
these 88 women, 72 (82%) tested positive for ZIKV in blood, urine, or
both. The timing of acute ZIKV infection ranged from 5 to 38 weeks of
gestation. Predominant clinical features included pruritic descending
macular or maculopapular rash, arthralgias, conjunctival injection, and
headache; 28% had fever (short-term and low-grade).

Women who were
positive for ZIKV were more likely than those who were negative for the
virus to have maculopapular rash (44% vs. 12%, P=0.02), conjunctival
involvement (58% vs. 13%, P=0.002), and lymphadenopathy (40% vs. 7%,
P=0.02). Fetal ultrasonography was performed in 42 ZIKV-positive women
(58%) and in all ZIKV-negative women.

Fetal abnormalities were detected
by Doppler ultrasonography in 12 of the 42 ZIKV-positive women (29%) and
in none of the 16 ZIKV-negative women. Adverse findings included fetal
deaths at 36 and 38 weeks of gestation (2 fetuses), in utero growth
restriction with or without microcephaly (5 fetuses), ventricular
calcifications or other central nervous system (CNS) lesions (7
fetuses), and abnormal amniotic fluid volume or cerebral or umbilical
artery flow (7 fetuses). To date, 8 of the 42 women in whom fetal
ultrasonography was performed have delivered their babies, and the
ultrasonographic findings have been confirmed.